But First We'll Live
by ohponthavemercy
Summary: There are some things you just can't forget. E/É post-barricade modern professor/student AU
1. Chapter 1

When she walks into the lecture hall for her history class, she freezes at the sight of the figure at the front of the room.

Not because he's astoundingly good-looking – even though he is, with a jawline so sharp she could probably shave with it, and golden curls that fall so gracefully onto his forehead she wants to ruffle them out of sheer perverseness – not because he's dressed impeccably either, in a crisp pale blue button-down that brings out the icy azure of his eyes, so pristine it makes her suddenly aware she's wearing the jeans she ripped moving into her new apartment and a ratty gray sweater with a string hanging off her right sleeve.

It has absolutely nothing to do with all that, and has everything to do with the fact she's seen it before. Seen him before, years ago, when she was just a senior in high school. She's getting her major in political science now, because of him.

Eponine finds a seat in the second row, and as she does so, she reflects upon that time.

Not particularly a happy time, which is why it's usually pushed to the back of the mental attic that is her memory. But that doesn't mean anything's gone fuzzy – there are some things you just can't forget.

_Like saving someone's life_, she thinks, as more students file in and the lecture hall is abuzz with conversation mixed with the hums of laptops being booted up and notebooks being taken out as pens start clicking expectantly.

He coughs, taps the pulpit up at the front of the hall a couple of times. Everything goes immediately silent – just like the room above the bar always did whenever he started speaking.

"Good afternoon," he says, and the memories that come flooding back at the familiar cultured diction makes her shiver in her seat just a little.

"Good afternoon," everyone gamely replies.

"I'm Professor Antoine Enjolras, Professor Enjolras or just Professor to the lot of you," he nods, before moving off the stage with a stack of papers. "Here's the syllabus for this class, if you could just distribute it amongst yourselves…"

When he passes by her seat, she fixes her eyes on him and wills him to notice her. She's not quite sure what she really wants him to do once he does so. Gasp, and turn pale on the spot? Say her name in a reverent whisper before demanding what she's doing in his class? Pass a note along with the syllabus to come see him after class? – okay, that one was going towards the risqué end of things.

He does none of those.

Instead, he turns in that time-and-evolution-preserved instinct to sense the gaze of someone else upon you, serious blue eyes which always, always startled her with their vibrancy locking on her intent brown.

He reaches out.

She waits.

He hands her the stack of papers. "Will you pass these to the people behind you?"

Eponine narrows her eyes, scanning his for a sign of recognition. There is nary a flicker. He is either a way better actor than he was years ago, or he sincerely does not remember – and he certainly does not know that it was she who saved him that day. He does not know that the last time she saw him, he'd looked like a fallen marble statue on the ground, barely breathing, the scarlet of his blood staining his flaxen hair. For a moment the shouts of policemen and frenzied students fill her ears, and her ribs and arms ache with the memory of sharp elbows and shoulders knocking into them as she struggled to safety with her unconscious burden, like the little mermaid in the hurricane, arms full of a prince that never woke in the jostle of the waves.

She shakes her head. "Yeah, sure," she begrudgingly obliges, taking the papers, dumping one on the tiny sliver of desk that is hers for an hour or so, and then sending them along for others to do the same.

"Now, class, the French Revolution was a period of social and radical upheaval in France starting in the events of 1787…" he starts, on the pulpit once more.

She sighs and puts her memories away to take notes. She loves this topic, and he does too, she knows, so she expects a great lecture.

He talks about Louis XVI, about his massive ineptitude and the discontent of the people, of the eventual calling of _les états généraux_. Of the Tennis Court Oath, and the storming of Bastille, a well-remembered national holiday now. It's a fine and analytical lecture, well-attuned to details, and he manages to surprise her a little on this topic with things she never knew, speaking so matter-of-factly, so carefully, treating the brave men of the past with reverence.

_But_, she starts. There's always a catch, that is no surprise to her, because she's a Thenardier (Jondrette now, she changed her name when she was 18, but she was first Thenardier and like an old house with a new layer of paint she is always Thenardier underneath, the name will never leave her alone). But it's a significant catch.

Enjolras lacks the brilliancy of his youth, she complains inwardly. He lacks the spark everyone used to be drawn to like helpless moths, made insipid and plain next to his dazzling words, his frenzied, passionate actions. Now, he is but a candle compared to the wildfire that once scorched all who came near.

The florescent lighting of the lecture hall pales his hair into the shade of corn silk, not the brilliant gold she knows it is, the color of a long-dead crown he once ranted about, and it_outrages_ her beyond belief.

She doesn't know why it upsets her so much, but she is fuming. She wants to kick and scream and cry like she hasn't in years, hasn't since they took her darling brother Gavroche away and put him in foster care, hasn't since she broke up with her abusive ex-boyfriend Montparnasse before fleeing away to college. She wants to punch his pretty little face, wants to fist her little hands in his shirt and shake him, just wants to do _something_, something to crack that serene marble exterior and show what she really knows is inside.

_Who are you_? She wails mentally at the figure who's circling the stage, pacing back and forth as he speaks._This isn't him. This isn't Enjolras, not the one I know. What happened to you?_


	2. Chapter 2

Every day Eponine adds to her lists of grievances against this new creature who calls himself Enjolras.

All and every single one of her memories of him has always had a bloom of red somewhere. Any shade. The passion of velvety roses, the crimson of fresh blood, the deep burgundy of a red wine. Always red.

But no. This Enjolras, this one, he wears white crisp linen and grey sweaters, he wears boring black blazers and khaki slacks. Where are his pretty synthetically-distressed jeans, where are his t-shirts ranging from the color of a ripe tomato to Harvard maroon? Every little lick of flame has been stamped out – this lionhearted boy-turned-dusty-man is just ashes.

His voice is always cool and well-modulated, never indulging in dramatic, long vowels, only sturdy solid consonants. There is power in that voice, she remembers, but only a hint of the lion's roar now, even when the idiots who sit behind her text their insipid boyfriends in class or forget that _Marie Antoinette wasn't her real name, she was Austrian, for heaven's sakes, you annoying uneducated little twits in your cashmere and Chanel and Gucci. What the hell are you even doing here? _She suspects that a good portion of the females in attendance is only here to watch the college's youngest and hottest professor rant about Robespierre.

But after a few weeks, they quickly drop out because it is soon apparent that Professor Enjolras is very much on the side of _not interested, especially if you haven't read your Sartre, sucks for you_, Eponine smirks to herself, still in the same old seat.

She doesn't stay just because he's a great teacher, even though he is. That leader quality that always resonated in him also helps him teach, because people will always listen to his words, even when they lack the luster of yesterday. Her last history teacher was a curmudgeonly grandfather who looked like he was going to die on the pulpit one day in the middle of a lecture on the Cold War – really, Eponine doesn't quite know what you do in that sort of situation.

She stays because every time she sees him, she feels guilty.

Guilt is no stranger to her, and she doesn't like feeling that she owes someone something, even though, technically, he owes her.

_But that's not how it works_, she protests vigorously. _Right? You save someone's life, they owe you then, right? _

Then how come whenever she sees this man, whenever he walks by and there is no more spring in his stride, even though it is as graceful as always, whenever he shows up in another one of those everyday Kenneth Cole work shirts, whenever the students file out of class and he just sits down in one of the empty seats in the front row, the slump of his shoulders makes her feel like maybe, just maybe, she shouldn't have.

Sometimes the look in his eyes makes her regret what was probably the noblest thing she had ever done in a time where her parents made her work part-time so they could steal all her wages, when they made her run errands for the ragtag gang of conmen and thieves they led, when she dragged her feet through the halls of her high school because damn it, some days, she just didn't _care_ any more. She used to sneak drinks and bum cigarettes off of handsome strangers, she used to run miles and miles all the time just to feel the wind rushing into her face and pretend those were Marius' fingers threading through her hair instead, or hide in the pool in their dirty apartment building complex, holding her breath underwater to punish her lungs and make the air she greedily inhaled sweeter when she rose to the surface.

So Eponine gets angry, because_how dare he_ make her regret? She owes him nothing, she wants to spit into his clean-shaven face. He's the one who owes her everything, so how dare he make her feel guilty, how dare he look at her with those violently blue eyes and make her want to die of shame?

A shred of shame burns off one day.

It's ironically and obnoxiously hot, a sweltering 23 degrees Celsius in Paris, which almost never happens in September, and the ancient air conditioning is doing its spluttering best to help, but it's failing rather spectacularly. It being a sunny afternoon, most of the class has either ditched to go find the nearest pool or is in the process of falling asleep.

Enjolras (she may call him Professor to his face, but due to the years and the various states she's seen him in before, young and bright and very much a teenager, titles evaporate in her mind) has unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up white sleeves to his elbows. People droop like flowers over their desks, the scribbles on notebooks becoming a EKG graph as their heart rates slow in the heat, fingers lingering too long on keyboard keys until all the Word documents read something that Eponine likes to think looks vaguely like Welsh and maybe ancient Greek smashed together.

He's talking about the June Rebellion, gesturing in the heavy air even though most people aren't paying attention by now.

"Earlier, in February 1832, some supporters of the Bourbons tried to carry off the royal family to safety in what was later called the 'conspiracy of rue des – ' " he falters. Nobody notices. " 'the conspiracy of rue des Prouvaires'." He finishes, smoothly. If his eyes seem unusually bright for a moment, it is only a trick of the wavering lighting as the florescent squares up above hum and crackle occasionally.

He goes on to discuss the Society of the Rights of Man, and the death of the benevolent General Lamarque, who had supported Polish and Italian liberty, a thing not taken lightly by the many refugees who had fled to Paris from their homelands. The funeral for the well-loved –okay, by the Republicans, really – general had been taken by demonstrators and directed to the Place de la Bastille.

"That night, three thousand insurgents rose up for one night to take control of the eastern and central districts of Paris," Enjolras continued. "They said to one another, 'We will sup at the Tuileries this evening'. But no one came."

"The barricades rose up in the Rue Saint-Martin and Rue Saint-Denis. They lost against 20,000 part-time militia of the Paris National Guard and 40,000 regular army troops. On the morning of June 6th, the last barricade was at the intersection of the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue Saint-Merry, where the fighting continued until evening, until the insurrectionists finally fell," he said, almost mournful for something happening two centuries ago. A mere speck of time, a grain of sand in the scheme of things, but so long to her.

"Why didn't anyone come?" She asks before she knows she's saying it out loud. His narrow-eyed, surprised gaze turns on her like a ray from a searchlight, from a lighthouse scanning the dark of the sea.

She meets it evenly. "Why didn't anyone come to help them? Surely there were more people in Paris than that. They left them to die alone."

His eyes soften, she swears, just a tad. "Revolution is harder than you think, mademoiselle –"

"Jondrette," she finishes, but before she does, she could swear she heard the beginnings of a "Then-" first in his careful voice, and it feels a little like a shot of whiskey going down. "But nobody can listen to their brothers and sons and cousins and husbands, their friends, dying in the streets and not do anything. They knew at the end of the first day their numbers were not enough, they must have. They were three thousand against sixty thousand of the might of the French militia. Why did they keep going? They should have stopped, they should have gone home, regrouped, and lived to fight another day."

A crinkle forms in his carved, lofty brow, before he leans forward and starts explaining, circling ever nearer to her desk like a shark. Before she quite knows what's happening, she pushes at the boundary even further, she flirts at that knife-thin edge of the cliff because hell, that's home to her, that's her stage, that's where she _dances_.

People are starting to wake up all around her as this little shadowy girl that stands a mere 5'4 is staring, chin tilted up, at their usually serene 6'2 professor, who leans with his fingers gripping the back of an empty chair in an empty row before her, sparks blazing almost angrily in his eyes, if Professor Enjolras ever got mad.

"Mademoiselle Jondrette, do you really think that –" he demands loudly.

"Professor Enjolras, are you insinuating that the people of Paris –" she counters back, matching him decibel for decibel.

The clock strikes three and people start gathering their stuff, the almost-scandalized surprise wearing off with that feeling of freedom all students feel at the end of class, arching their backs as they stretch and move about. But Eponine lingers, if only for a moment, to have the last glare, before she smirks and sashays off with her satchel, leaving a still-thunderous history professor behind as she walks into the sunshine.

The smirk on her face is going to make her cheeks hurt eventually, but as she squints into the light, it's worth it.

_So that's how things stand_, she thinks mirthfully, and then she walks off to get an ice cream in celebration of the first crack in the marble.


	3. Chapter 3

The student in the second row on the left side, right next to the aisle, is driving Enjolras crazy.

She's brilliant, he admits, as she aces their first exam with flying colors and blazes through an on-demand essay. In an afternoon class full of tired students majoring in other things who are scraping by because it's mandatory, there are only a couple history buffs who clearly enjoy what they're doing. But none of them have her characteristic boldness. Most are so unoriginal, he bemoans, slapping essay after essay into a pile, each one drenched in so much red ink it looks like he murdered someone on top of it. They have no idea how privileged and how easy they have it, he muses; they're just dragging their feet without any purpose or any inkling of desire to go out and find it, instead chasing things that will only serve themselves and gratify five-minute longings. But her work is a breath of fresh air; it is crisp and matter-of-fact. He can imagine her so easily, tossing her inky waves back to glare at him as she fiercely enunciates each argument.

That's probably because he's seen that image way too often in the past couple of weeks. To say she was tenacious would be a hideous understatement. She's as stubborn as an ox and as inquisitive as a cat, and she seems determined to push every button she can find out of sheer contrariness, with witty side-remarks and the hints of a smirk perpetually lingering about her mouth.

It reminds him a little of Bahorel, her ferocity, because sometimes he'd get that same glint in his eye, and he was always getting into fights, too, because he could (and Joly would cluck like a little mother hen and bandage him up, tutting about how downright unsanitary cuts from beer bottles were). And that's the train of thought that really sends him spiraling downwards.

Because sometimes she smiles, red lips curling upwards a little crookedly, and she tilts her head a little to the side, and the whole effect screams _Grantaire_ (okay, excluding the dark scarlet lipstick, except for that one time at Courfeyrac's house – never mind).

Sometimes during class she throws her hair into a distracted quick braid and slings it over her shoulder, and he has to shake his head to stop thinking that Jehan would have leaned over and done it for her, because Jehan had a thing for the "curling silken tendrils of a beautiful woman's hair". At least, that was how he would put it.

The way her eyebrows arch sometimes, cocky and amused, reminds him of Courfeyrac, the way she's forever banging her knees on a desk (and the way she scowls before looking around, rubbing her knee furtively as she makes sure nobody saw that) brings to mind good-natured Bossuet, that sympathetic wince when he describes the wounds of victims of war is Joly's through and through.

She herself used to always be associated with Marius in his mind, but now she is a reminder of all of them. She has witnessed so much, so much, now that only they remember, a secret only they can share. Sometimes he wonders if she ever thinks about it. He does, every day. Every single day.

She turns in her topic proposal for the term paper on the student revolutions of 1832, and he just sighs._Of all the things in all the history of Europe, and you had to pick that one, Eponine._ But he finds he admires her spunk, though, but her fresh and unique perspective on things would make it interesting, and he can't help but think he'd actually enjoy reading it – especially if it was as well-thought-out as all her other writings.

He should be mad at her, because she is the shadow of his glory days before, because she is a reminder. So no, he should not admire her razor-sharp wit and her guts, he should not like her at all.

Every day he remembers, and although he does not want to forget them, no, he does not want to be haunted by his friends. He does not want to remember how Grantaire thinks he can dance the salsa excellently and sing in Italian like he's Andrea Botticelli when he's well and truly drunk (_My God, Grantaire, the salsa is Cuban, for goodness' sakes_, he'd point out), does not want to remember Jehan's awful haiku phase or Feuilly's awful "artist pick-up lines" ("I have problems drawing hands. Will you hold mine for reference?") or, heaven forbid, his Poland pick-up lines ("You can't partition our love, darling").

Gone, because some uptight policeman with a grudge against anyone who even breathed the word "revolution" or "change" or "socialism" decided to spray the crowd with bullets. Because of that idiotic Georges Claquesous, who was more likely than not going to drink himself blind one day. That dimwitted stoner with less opinions and thoughts than office furniture, with his stupid gun, showing up to a _peaceful_protest and deciding to fire off a few shots - _what the hell did you think you were doing, anyway? _Enjolras rages with all the fury that's been building up slowly over the years. It had been festering like an old wound, untouched, but now, every look, every gesture of hers, is like a dash of salt or a spritz of vinegar, coaxing it back to life.

One Wednesday, he's talking about Otto von Bismarck and the unification of the German states. "… when Frederick VII of Denmark died, there was a dispute over the succession to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which were claimed by both Christian IX, Frederick VII's heir, and Frederick von Augsutenberg, a German duke. Prussian public opinion leaned rather heavily towards von Augsutenberg. Bismarck, however, believed the territories should go to Denmark. However, he denounced the idea of the entirety of Schleswig being annexed completely to the Danish."

"That's a bit paradoxical, isn't it?" She sounds bored.

Enjolras forges onward. "He issued an ultimatum for Christian IX to return Schleswig to its former status, but the Danish king refused. Therefore, Prussia and Austria forged an alliance and together invaded in the Second War of Schleswig, defeating the Danes in 1834. In the Treaty of Vienna, signed on October 30th of that year, Denmark ceded the two duchies to Prussia and Austria. After the war, Prussia wanted to annex the provinces into her state territory, but the Austrians insisted on a condominium. Therefore Bismarck met with Gustav von Blome, an Austrian envoy, in the town of Bad Gastein, deciding that Prussia would rule over Schleswig and the Austrians would do the same over Holstein." Using a laser pointer, he circled the two territories on the projector screen above and behind him. "However, as Austria is currently here, and Holstein here, it's a bit of a stretch to rule a duchy that far away, especially with Prussia in between."

"The British managed it just fine, with the exception of America," Eponine mumbles, pulling her hair out of her ponytail. He pointedly ignored her.

"Clearly, Bismarck was trying to provoke a war with Austria, and the Austro-Prussian War did eventually occur. The Prussian army, organized by the genius Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, defeated the Austrians and their allies in the Battle of Koniggratz. As a result of the Peace of Prague, the German Confederation was dissolved and Austria no longer had a hand in German affairs. As you can see, Bismarck had a brilliant step-by-step plan to unite the German states into one solid body, with Prussia – or really, himself – at the head."

Eponine scoffs, loudly. He narrows his eyes, irritated and completely fed up with her antics. "Is there something you'd like to add, mademoiselle?" Enjolras asks, icily.

She leans over her desk, shifting in the sunlight streaming in from the opened windows. "Bismarck didn't plan it at all – it's not like he had this journal under his pillowcase labeled 'German Unification in Five Steps or Less'," she snorts. "He was an opportunist. Chances came and he grabbed them. Yes, he wanted to unify Germany, so he may have had some idea of his goals. But it's not like he heard of Frederick VII's death and thought, '_yes, now I must ally with Austria and backstab them to provoke a war in which I will dominate them and exile them from German politics forever_'." Some of the other students chuckle at that.

"Well –" he starts, but she's not done. Clearly she's looking for some sort of argument, the line of her shoulders set and that familiar glint in her eyes.

"I mean, look at the Ems dispatch affair. How was he supposed to know that French ambassador was going to waylay Wilhelm I on his morning walk? And how was he supposed to predict the secretary, Heinrich Abeken, was going to give him the account of it? And when the King gave permission for Bismarck to release his own account of events, do you think he sat there and just _knew_ they were going to declare war, much less win? Of course not. Chance, luck, fate, God smiling down on him, what have you, it happened, and the Prussians won, and et voila, the German states united. But don't tell me Bismarck _planned_ it. Nobody ever quite knows the consequences for anything in this world, and neither did he, but he took what he got and he ran with it, and somehow, it all worked out in the end," she says. Her tone is no-nonsense and challenging, and it makes him sigh, because he can see Combeferre saying the same words in a dusty room above a bar, his head tilted just so.

All the fight evaporates out of him suddenly. "A. J. P. Taylor, a British historian, had the same idea, as well as a very, very good friend of mine," he sighs again, infinitely weary. "So, yes, Eponine, you may be right." She blinks, startled and a little disappointed, because surely she was expecting more of a struggle than that. Her gaze is sharp and searching as he says, "I think I'll dismiss class a little early today. Good evening, class."

The students, unquestioning, pack up as he shuffles his papers. She drifts along with the crowd, of course, but she does look back – he can feel her bright eyes on him, confused. He does not look up to meet them.

In his office that evening, he cannot focus on the papers he is grading. All he can see is Jehan trying out poetry on a willing Courfeyrac, Grantaire's easy laugh as he and Combeferre talks about the Franco-Prussian war as if they were rewriting history and the fate of those two countries was once again being decided there and then, between them. He can't for the life of him remember what was so urgent, but it had seemed important to them then. Everything had.

"_Bismarck's philosophy was to take what life gave him, and whatever happened, happened. There were no consequences. He lived for what was right for his country right then, all the while cajoling the people into loving him_," Combeferre had said, with that introspective flair philosophy majors always cultivated. "_There's a lovely lesson in that – the past is the past. Consequences - you can't change them, Enjolras. You have to take what you are given, and keep on living_."

"How can I keep on living when all of you are gone, 'Ferre?" he whispers, his head in his hands.

There's a rap at his office door suddenly and when she herself walks in, he can't help it.

"What do you want from me?" It's not a calm, professional question coming from the teacher, it's a demand, it's a cry of agony.

"Excuse me?" She pauses in the doorway, a furrow forming between her eyebrows. Her hands are full of papers. "…I was just going to ask you about my paper."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean, professor?"

"You know what I'm talking about, mademoiselle,"

"If you're asking me if I deliberately picked this class, I didn't. I'm not a ghost."

"You must carry them around with you, then," he growls.

Her laugh is bitter and sad. "No, I think you like them." He tangles his fingers in his hair desperately, and her eyes soften at the motion. "What happened to you, Enjolras?"

"What do you mean?"

"A professor, of all things?" She twirls to examine her surroundings, her dark eyes taking in the crowded bookshelves, the piles of documents haphazardly strewn everywhere, the sweater tossed over a ratty old chair that has seen far better days, the heavy lamp with the rusty brass base. "I didn't save you for –" She stops, and his entire world stops revolving with her.

"You _what_?" He crosses the room before he realizes he's done so, towering over her, backing her into the wall.

She has to tilt her chin back to peer up at him, but otherwise she makes no signs of retreat or weakness. "I am the one that found you, in the crowd. After the first shots, I went looking for Marius in the crowd, but somebody else was taking him away. I was trying to get out – and I stumbled over you. So I pulled you into a nearby alley, and I called 112 to get you help."

"Why? Why on earth would you do that?" She doesn't respond, and he feels tempted to throttle her. "_Eponine_. Answer me."

She avoids his gaze before she starts talking. "You were the leader of the whole protest, it was you who recruited the people, and it was you who organized it. You were the one inspiring everyone. It was always you." Suddenly dark chocolate eyes are turned upon him, glittering and hard. "So if something happened to you, who would fight for little people like me? A few soldiers may fall, but a general can't, or else the entire war is lost."

"They were my friends. They died because of me," he forces out.

Her voice is gentle. "You don't know that –"

"Yes, I do!" He roars at her. "They're all dead, and I would have died, too, if it weren't for you. You shouldn't have. You should have left me there."

"No." She shakes her head vehemently.

"Yes, you should have. I was not yours to save."

"You once wanted to save everyone," she reminds him, because she's always reminding him. _Why can't she leave me alone?_ Regardless of his inner turmoil, she plunges onward. "Look at you. Look at this. You've become this dusty little professor tucked away in this university, stuck with kids falling asleep in their chairs that don't pay attention to the things of last week, let alone last century?"

"What, then, mademoiselle, would you have me do?" He snaps sarcastically. "It's a living."

"This isn't _living_. This isn't what you were supposed to do," she throws out her arms. "I – I always saw you as this leader, as this golden person who wanted to 'change the world', right? What are you now, Enjolras? Maybe all your friends did die, okay, maybe. But would they have wanted you to become all this?"

"_You have no right to tell me these things_," he snarls, low and furious like he hasn't been in ages. "You don't know anything about what happened. You don't realize that when you saved me, you left all my friends behind, and now I have to deal with that every single day. Every day. And you, you come in here and you make it _worse_. You want to know why I'm like this now? Do you?" He demands of her, leaning in so close his breath skates across her eyelids. "You did it. You. So you have no right to tell me anything about how I should live my life, _Eponine_."

"Enjolras, I –" She blinks, and that simple gesture tells of deeper hurt than she would ever let on. But he, like a hurricane building up over the sea, is too far gone to stop.

"Get out. _Now_."

She doesn't need telling twice. Eponine bolts out of the room.

Enjolras kicks the door closed with a bang.

For the first time, the office feels too small, too confining as that he stands in the middle. He runs his hand over his face, and his sigh makes the walls reverberate.

There is no sound coming from the student in the second row on the left side, right next to the aisle, for the next couple of days.

She is there, yes. She takes her notes, she nods at brief intervals during the lectures, but otherwise, it feels like she's not there, like she's just another shadow. The classroom feels too quiet, too still, without her wildly gesticulating hands and the flash of her cocky smile, the music of her rising and falling voice.

And, despite his best efforts, he misses her. He misses her sarcastic side-remarks, how she deftly parries his arguments when they fight, how when she laughs she throws her head back and her throat flashes in the florescent lighting as she gives herself over to mirth. It is only in laughter that he has ever seen her that open. He wants to apologize, but her cold eyes and unwelcoming mouth chase away what little words he can think of to say. So he regrets, and this guilt simply adds onto his list.

A week passes by in this manner.

He's in the library looking for a copy of a book on the Parisian barricades one evening. Walking briskly through the stacks (he prides himself on knowing them like the back of his hand), he reaches the spot where it's supposed to be, and… it's not there.

He circles the area, feeling more than a little offended that someone dared take it, and according to the catalog, it hadn't been checked out…_some freshman probably misplaced it somewhere, damn it. _

No, there it is, lying open on a table that's set a little out of the way, in a cozy corner. There's one little problem – there's someone asleep on top of it.

Not just some random student, either. _Ah, hell_. Her hair is fanned out, dark against the honey-colored wood of the table, her cheek and the corner of her mouth pressed against the white page. From the shadows under her eyes, it's the first time she's truly slept in a while.

He could try to jiggle the book out from underneath her, but that would probably wake her, and for some reason, he doesn't have the heart to do so, as she slumbers on in the waning golden light, another stack of books teetering on her left. Her eyelashes flutter lightly against the yellowing paper like butterfly wings, dreams whirling by under her eyelids.

Enjolras scrambles in his satchel for something to write on, and his fingers latch around her papers. He'd riffled through it guiltily after she had left last Wednesday night – it had the potential to be as good as he thought it would, as long as she paid attention to some of the edits he'd made (he had a feeling she'd argue with him on some of them, though). He'd never had the opportunity to give it back to her, and so, there in his satchel it had stayed.

Putting the papers down on the table next to her, Enjolras takes a pen out of his pocket and scribbling on the margin of the top page, "_I forgot to hand this back to you. It's great – but I'm not surprised. About that other night… Eponine, you should never form conclusions on insufficient data, a friend once told me, but for what it's worth, you're right._" He signs with a sweeping "_Professor Enjolras_", and, as an afterthought, wryly tacks on, "_P.S. By the way, I was going to check out that book you're currently using as a pillow. For your sake, I hope it's comfortable_."

Then, he leaves her in her peaceful corner of the library and goes off to find something on Charles de Gaulle – hopefully that one was available.

The next morning, there is a thick volume on his desk, though he's almost certain he locked his office.

"_Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1848_," he reads aloud. There is a sunny yellow Post-It note tacked just under the title, and vaguely familiar scrawled handwriting in blue pen.

"_For Professor Enjolras:_

_ Thanks for editing my paper. And I accept your apology._

_ -Eponine Jondrette_

_ P.S. It's extremely comfortable, you should try it."_

That afternoon, he lectures on imperial Russia under the power of Tsar Alexander II. "Alexander II, in response to peasant revolts disrupting the countryside, issued an emancipation edict allowing peasants to own their own property, marry as they chose, and bring suits in the law courts."

"What a noble illustration of the tender laws of Russia! They let paupers marry!" Eponine quips under her breath, and he glares at this appropriation of Charles Dickens' famous work.

She flashes a knowing, infuriating smile at him. And he may roll his eyes skyward, but the corners of his mouth turn up too.


	4. Chapter 4

Libraries always were her havens.

When she was just a kid, she liked playing hide and seek with her little sister Azelma in the stacks, giggling quietly around huge tomes and breathing in that distinctive smell (that was when Azelma still loved her, when she still thought of Eponine as her cool big sister, her hero).

When she was a teenager, she'd often hide in some forgotten corner to sleep, because there was no way 'Parnasse or Georges would ever set foot in a library (literacy – oh, the terror).

Now, she's found what she likes to think of as _her_ spot near the rare books section, an always-empty, honey-colored table with cushioned chairs. It has a big window overlooking a small pocket of grass and a tall weeping willow somebody brought in years ago, and on sunny days she curled in her own patch of serenity, papers spread around her. Nobody ever comes to this part of the library, and so she's come to think of it as her own territory, come to depend on the silence.

So when there's a golden flash of motion in the corner of her eye as she shifts to pile her hair into a sloppy bun, she pauses.

"I can see you, you know, Professor," she calls out.

Enjolras steps out, balancing several books in his arms and looking somewhat sheepish. "Good day, Eponine."

"Be honest now," she says, amused. "Are you spying on me to make sure I'm working on your paper?"

Enjolras splutters, taken aback. "Of course not! I was just grabbing a few extra books! I would never – you're a very dedicated student, Eponine –"

Eponine laughs.

"Right, you were joking," he mumbles, sliding the books to one arm to rub at the back of his neck in embarrassment. She decides she likes seeing him blush and start, smiling in almost boyish shyness. After all, it's not like she gets to see him flustered often. "It's more crowded than usual in here … would you – would you mind terribly if I, um –"

"Sit down, sit down," she gestures, sweeping her array of notebooks and papers over, sending highlighters rolling along the plane of the table.

He immediately strides over, murmuring, "they're doing some sort of renovations near my office and it's never quiet over there, please let me know if I'm bothering you" and that sort of thing. She waves a hand in the air dismissively.

They soon settle into a comfortable silence. She recalls, after a few moments, how they used to do this often, in the old dingy room above the bar, quietly doing homework as Grantaire and Jehan made up weird drinking songs, her patiently teaching a very confused Marius calculus while Enjolras typed furiously on his sleek Macbook. So working together – okay, not really _together_ together, just at the same table, she insists – is nothing new.

And that is how she rationalizes the fact that he starts showing up day after day, not saying anything other than a mumbled comment on how the construction next to his office isn't done yet. It's not _inappropriate_ or anything, she thinks; after all, it's actually rather convenient, because she finds herself sliding over papers for him to peruse, listening eagerly as he circles and underlines things in his signature red pen, brows furrowed in concentration. He never seems annoyed or bothered by her questions, but focuses on whatever she asks him to with single-minded devotion, gently casting his work aside. She'd forgotten how he always did that, blue eyes narrowing at whatever was in front of him like it was the most important thing in the world at that exact moment.

"What are you working on today?" he starts asking as he slides into what is now "his" chair.

"The Congress of Vienna," or "Machiavellian ethics," she'd say simply with a long-suffering sigh, and sometimes he'd give her a look like_that's easy, you've done that before_ or a little "tch" of sympathy. Long habit (or perhaps it's been ingrained into her by Courfeyrac and Grantaire's _oh God don't ever ask Enjolras what he's working on unless you want a lecture on women's equality or something_) prevents her from ever turning the tables and asking him what he's thundering so furiously at his keyboard for, but the clicking noises beside her are comforting, if she's being honest. Actually, if she was even more honest, she'd say that lately, it seems as if once they leave the classroom, he forgets that he's supposed to be her superior, as if they're just kids doing homework again. But that's not surprising in itself – two people with shared memories only a few years apart in age naturally gravitating towards each other, right? It's just a very comfortable professor-student relationship, Eponine reassures herself.

One night they get into such a long debate over her paper that they actually get kicked out because it's already dinnertime.

"Oh, _come on_," Eponine says in response, glancing out of the window to her left. The sun was setting. "God forbid you have the last word yet again."

"I'm pretty sure that's not in the Ten Commandments," Enjolras points out with a wryness Eponine hasn't seen in years.

"Oh, dear God in heaven! Professor Enjolras has made a joke! The world is ending, save yourselves!" She faux-gasps, pantomiming a swoon.

"Come on, we can go to my office," he ignores her pointedly, striding along down the concrete sidewalks crisscrossing the quad.

"I thought you said it was noisy due to construction," she points out in the dim hallway in the darkened history building as he fumbles at the lock.

He drops his keys onto the purplish carpet and makes a frantic dive for them. "Oh, uh, they finished a few days ago, but it's still a bit dusty and all –" In the darkness, it's impossible to tell if he's blushing or not. She smiles but decides not to pursue it further.

They squint at the brightness as he flicks the lights on, apologizing profusely for the mess.

"It's alright, you should see my apartment," she reassures without much thought, and he freezes in the middle of straightening teetering piles of books and sweeping ink-smudged crumpled balls of paper into the wastebasket.

"I should think that would be against the rules of professor-student interactions," Enjolras says in clipped tones.

"I didn't mean it like that," she snorts, eyebrows arching. What she really wants to say is, _When did you care for the rules, monsieur?_ But she can definitely see that blush now, and really, she doesn't think he'd take it very well. History and politics, they're a breeze to him; he charges through them with all the bravado of a lion, but flirting? Absolutely clueless. It was more than a little endearing, she thinks, but banishes the thought when he makes an odd comment on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The next day she comes by to turn in a paper comparing imperialism and colonization (he'd gotten so fed up the other day at how no one was paying attention to his lecture and assigned ten pages in a fit of pique – she'd balked and given him an annoyed lecture heavily based on Cesare Beccaria's _On Crimes and Punishments_ later on, but had agreed that yes, the class needed some sort of discipline).

She ends up staying to discuss the general stupidity of the policy of appeasement during World War II ("You only think it's ridiculous because you know the eventual outcome, Eponine," Enjolras had pointed out, even though he'd agreed).

At five, she stretches to check the clock, laughing to herself. "We never were sticklers for the rules, were we?" He just shakes his head in reply.

And that is how they slowly drift from their spot to the library to the coziness of his office, and how gradually the worn-out couch that looks like he stole it from one of the dorms starts to smell like her perfume, and why one day she bursts through the door like a hurricane is at her back.

"What's going on now?" he asks, not even looking up from his desk, his voice weary and infinitely patient.

She dumps her messenger bag on the couch, sinking to the floor in front of it. "I have to write a paper on the political ideas behind various art movements."

His raised eyebrow and the thoroughly unimpressed look he gives her asks, _And?_

"I suck at art," she pouts, childishly. "That's why I'm a _political science major_."

"Do you want help?" He queries, even though by now he knows the answer.

She nods, because even now it hurts her pride to say it aloud, and he sighs like a martyr as he slowly gets up from his leather-backed swivel chair. Enjolras towers over her as she flops on her stomach carelessly like a seal, spreading out art books and printouts around her.

"Look at all of this. How am I supposed to relate something like _The Ecstasy of St. Theresa _to the absolutism of Louis XIV? What do fucking nun orgasms fit into anything at all? If Professor Dubois makes this worth 150 points, I shit you not, I'm gonna murder someone…" she grouses, pounding a fist on the carpet for emphasis.

"Language," he intones, chiding.

"Sorry," she says, not a trace of apology in her voice, peering up at him. "This is hurting my neck, sit down."

She can't help but giggle as he gingerly sits himself down on the ground beside her like a grandmother with arthritis.

"It's not wise to laugh when you're requesting help from me," Enjolras sniffs with well-bred dignity.

"Who said I was wise?" Her lips curl in amusement, and he just snorts.

He starts grabbing printouts, and even if he says he's not that great at art, Eponine appreciates how he squints in concentration, as if racking his brains for anything he could offer her, sometimes just giving the historical background on the era a piece was made in. She nods and she scribbles things on printouts and in her notebooks, circling a detail here or there as she listens to the pleasant, serious rumble of his voice.

"Thanks," she murmurs under her breath, stretching across pages lazily to mark up _Liberty Leading the People _by Delacroix.

He sits up and rubs the back of his neck, shrugging. "I never really focused on art. That was always more of Grantaire or Feuilly's area." Suddenly his eyes dim a little, and she flounders in the silence, unsure of what to do.

She never really knew the boys all that well – they were simply _there_, just a loud and boisterous group of self-proclaimed revolutionaries. The bald guy, Bossuet, was always spilling things on himself or breaking things, and Grantaire she knew to be the man who often snuck her a drink or two before another one, the one with the glasses – _Combeferre_, that's it – caught him. It wasn't that they had been unkind to her; in fact, they had been kinder than she deserved, but they had always seemed too close-knit for her to try to worm her way in, and a little unreal in their fervor, like fairy tales. Like stars, too far away to understand her particular darkness.

In her awkwardness she shuffles amongst her scattered art pieces and finds one particular statue. "Oh, look, it's you," she jokes, lifting it into the light.

He squints confusedly at the glossy photograph. "I know I told you art wasn't really my best subject, but I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be David."

"No, it really does remind me of you," she insists, barely managing to not give him a paper cut as she shifts to place the paper next to his temple. "See, same set jaw, same determined brows, same stubborn mouth, you even have the same hair." She's always liked Bernini's _David_ anyway, liked how it was if he was frozen perpetually in motion, carved eyes intense in their ferocity. "Tell me, how'd you manage to escape the Louvre?"

"I'm almost positive it's not at the Louvre," he protests, but now he's smiling broadly.

" ' "Almost positive" is not proof of actually knowing,' " she volleys his own statement from a few days ago back at him, and Enjolras just laughs.

When the chuckles die down she turns back to her work, satisfied and tapping a pen on her chin as she composes her thoughts. She can feel the prickle of his gaze on her, so she turns.

"What, is there ink on my nose or something –" she starts to ask, but he's staring at her like she imagines Vasco Nunez de Balboa must have looked out on the endless azure of the Pacific Ocean, discovery and hesitant amazement in his eyes.

It's like a flash of lightning, startling in its appearance but gone in a heartbeat.

"What? No, you're good," Enjolras reassures in a murmur, quieter than usual, shuffling the photographs absorbedly.

She leaves soon afterwards to start her first shift at a job her roommate told her about, shoving photographs and art books into her bag pell-mell. His gaze is almost indulgently amused, and for some reason on her it feels like drowning.

The next day to her relief he's the same old, serious Enjolras as he scribbles notes down on _The Two Treatises of Government_, even though he's probably read it a thousand times already ("A good book is one that you read over and over and over again and still find something new within its pages," he intones when she points this out, appropriately fortune cookie-like), the afternoon sunlight slanting through the blinds into panels across the carpet.

Yet, even as she doodles in the margins of her notebook and he glances over to her, exasperated and affectionate, there _is _something different, something in the air that's not quite the same.

Lightning, she suddenly recalls, has this one quality: it leaves white-hot crackling streaks in the air, even after it's long gone.


	5. Chapter 5

After that, everything starts coming undone, a fact not hindered by finals.

"You really shouldn't hang around my office for a while after next week, people will think you're stealing answers from me. No, don't give me that look – I'm not helping you out just because I – we're friends," Enjolras says decisively, looking up from his computer screen as he sits at his desk.

She pouts playfully, lifting her eyebrows just a little. "We are?"

He ducks his head a little, a riot of a blush starting on his cheeks. "Well, um, ah, you know, we're, ah –"

It's so adorable – wait no, that's the wrong word, it's, ah, _endearing_, Eponine decides. Wait, but that doesn't quite work either. All she knows is that she really, really likes this stammering Enjolras that is turning pinker by the second. It has never been said that she is merciful, exactly, but he's looking up at her as he flounders for words so helplessly that she just has to lean across to peer at his computer in pretended interest. "What's this, professor?"

Enjolras suddenly goes quiet, the clacking of his fingers on the keys coming to an abrupt halt. She's starting to regret her infernal curiosity when he finally murmurs in an undertone, "I was thinking about getting together another group, organizing another protest."

"About?"

"Have you noticed the utter lack of care or interest in the homeless communities of this city?" Enjolras points out. "I went to a soup kitchen the other day – understaffed, and the broth there wouldn't nourish a stray _cat_. Honestly." He starts ranting about awareness and the incentive of community service hours for high schoolers, about the "brand-name rage" of the university students who probably could bring closets full of lightly worn clothes to donate.

She has to grip the desk tightly with white knuckles under the torrent of flashbacks, because suddenly all she sees is the Friday nights of five years ago, slick green glass of wine bottles sparkling in the dimming light like a poor man's emeralds, distinctive freckles drifting in and out of her vision like stars as a fierce young man clambers on top of a rickety table, arms outspread like a self-righteous spirit of war out of myth and legend. But this Enjolras, this one is actually looking at her, actually seeing her, his eyes searching her face for some sort of reaction.

She tells him honestly. "That sounds amazing. It'll be great, if you can get enough people."

"You think so?" he asks anxiously, almost _hopeful_.

"Of course I do," she assures. He looks up at her from his seated position, his face aglow with relief and an easy smile resting on his features, and suddenly her heart's in her throat and she can't breathe.

_ Oh_, she thinks. _Oh._ And then,_fuck._

She is not supposed to be this affected by his presence. She is not supposed to bicker with him in class just to watch those blue eyes flash with resigned irritation, or notice how when he's thinking he purses his mouth just so. Eponine is the self-proclaimed "Queen of Knowing When Things Will Go Wrong", and she can sense this one from a mile away.

But he's driving her completely and absolutely crazy, she knows, lying on her stomach on the carpet in his office a few days later.

"Explain it to me again," she demands, kicking her heels like a child. Papers flutter, airborne on his sigh of resignation, but he flops heavily beside her anyway. "Thank you."

"Anything for you." His voice is deeply sarcastic, but the smile he turns in her direction is gentle. "Why are you on my carpet again?" as he leans on his elbows with the casual grace she can't stop noticing these days.

She chirps cheerfully, "The sun's best over here, it's all nice and warm." He rolls his eyes and mutters something about babysitting the equivalent of a kitten before he goes over the independence movements of the smaller nations in the U.S.S.R. once more.

She tries to pay attention to the Romanian protests and the efforts of Lech Walesa in Poland, she really does. Eponine tries not to think about the fact he's only a few inches away, about how his nose is scrunched adorably as he gestures, his shoulder bumping into hers occasionally, about how his work shirt's got three buttons undone – oh, never mind, she is so fed up with this whole thing.

"Eponine? Are you paying attention?"

Before she can have the opportunity to come to her senses, she reaches over and grabs his chin, pulling him to her and crashing her lips into hers.

The way he instantly freezes makes her start to regret it and think of some escape plan, but then he's allowing her to roll onto him, his hands are coming up to pull her closer, tangling in her hair even as his lips are moving against hers, with growing confidence, and why hasn't she tried this before?

"Why can't you be this enthusiastic about history in class," he gripes breathlessly against her lips when they break apart for air.

She wraps her fingers around his tie to tug him back to her. "Shut up, professor."

He obliges with a vengeance, kissing her fiercely in a way that is so_him_ that she smiles until she can feel the corners of his mouth lifting against hers.

He flips them over, pressing her against the floor and nipping at the column of her bare throat until she practically mewls, his chuckle vibrating on her skin. She retaliates with a swivel of her hips, smirking in triumph at the way his fingers cling to them in a very half-hearted attempt to keep her still.

When he first pulls his head away as her fingers start undoing the buttons of his shirt, she doesn't quite understand.

"Eponine, stop." He sits up abruptly, his hair in wild disarray and his shirt half-open and crumpled. "We can't."

"What?" She narrows her eyes in confusion. "Is there something wrong?"_With me_, she doesn't add, but he seems to hear it anyway.

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. " Listen. I – I like you a lot, okay? It's not personal, it's just – I can't." Enjolras laughs shakily. "I'm your_professor_, for crying out loud."

"When'd you get concerned about the rules?" she tilts her head lightly.

He groans. "It's not about that –"

Eponine cuts in artlessly. "Shh, I know. I get it." She reaches over and sweeps a curl out of his eyes, smiling a little at the way he leans into her touch subconsciously. "I just wish you'd live a little."

With that, she gets up and leaves the room.

She doesn't see him for a while after that. After finals, school's over, and with that comes summer and its requisite cloak of humidity, as well as hot days and chilly crowded movie theaters, frozen yogurt places popping up by the dozens, and the daily coaxing of her rattling apartment air conditioning back to life. Eponine ends up getting a job at the local swimming pool as a lifeguard, spending her days lazing by the pool and watching young children splash each other with chlorinated water. And equally trying to forget and remember a certain history professor (it's funny how these things work).

It's July when she's walking to the corner bookstore and is stopped by a wall of sweaty, attentive humanity eagerly listening to a very familiar voice yelling over the crowd. She'd recognize the cultured lilt and the allegretto rise and fall of the syllables anywhere.

Eponine wriggles her way through the crowd, bouncing up on the tips of her toes to peer up at the rickety makeshift stage in the center of the hands remind of her birds, flapping erratically as he talks, blazing with passion, standing erect above the bobbing heads of his listeners with confidence. _Look at me, I'm right here, yes, right here, can't you see,_ she begs him mentally.

As applause ripples through the crowd after his speech, her eyes finally meet his. His smile illuminates his entire face, surprised and ridiculously ecstatic, even if she knows she must look exactly the same.

In the surge of people pressing towards the stage, somebody jostles her, and she's unbalanced for a moment, pivoting in order to remain standing. When she turns back around, Enjolras is no longer on the stage.

In fact, he's no longer in sight at all.

"No, no, not again," she groans under her breath, carelessly elbowing the people next to her in an effort to get closer, diving into the sea of people. The square is practically humming with their empty chatter, moving in some unknown direction.

Eponine really has no idea what's going on at this point, she just needs to find him, because there is an image of a fallen marble statue with a bloodied brow in the midst of turmoil and chaos floating in the back of her mind, sharper and sharper as she grows more and more hysterical with worry. She's half-running, half-shoving her way through, twisting past the grumbles of "Watch where you're going!" and the squeals of shocked rage as she blindly tramples on sandaled toes.

Somebody's shove sends her reeling onto the pavement, and suddenly all she can see is stomping, careless feet and swiftly moving jean-clad legs. She's about to scream in frustration when two hands clasp around her shoulders, pulling her up with firm gentleness.

It's Enjolras, scowling furiously. "What are you doing? You could have been_trampled_, for God's sake, Eponine," he's saying, shaking his head. "You were right there one second and gone the next, and _I couldn't find you_, goddamnit -"

" - Look who's talking," she snaps back automatically, before she realizes that his eyes are alight with worry, and his fingers are still wrapped around her shoulders, digging in a little the way she imagines the hands of drowning sailors must curl as they reach for the airy sky above.

The crowd moves around them like a river parting around rocks, their noisy chatter as distant and distorted as if she's hearing it from underwater. He's glaring down at her angrily, glowering silently. Eponine raises her chin stubbornly to stare back in kind, the tilt of her head a wordless challenge.

Suddenly he's bending his head down and capturing her lips in a messy, breathless, almost angry kiss, the type of kiss built out of months of yearning and seconds that have been stretched into eternities by the sheer idea of loss, the type of kiss that says _I missed you, okay, and I couldn't ever bring myself to tell you._

She pulls back a little to whisper, "What are you doing?"

His smile is crooked but beautiful as he tilts his head to the side in pretended innocence.

"I think it's called 'living a little'."


End file.
